Raise the Curtain and Welcome to 'Vanity Fair' Quiz

Answer: 1847

Thackeray first published his biting social satire in installments between 1847 and 1848. The novel was subtitled 'A Novel Without A Hero', a reference to one of the major themes of the novel, that of what passes for social morality. Thackeray leaves no target unspared, wittily attacking corruption and deceitfulness in every sphere of society, including the church, the army and the nobility.

The book regularly exposes the hypocrisy of characters who claim moral superiority and censure others for being immoral while being quite wicked themselves.

Answer: Becky Sharp

Becky Sharp is one of the most interesting and enduring heroines of Victorian fiction. Although she does many terrible things in the pursuit of fame and fortune, the reader is still inclined to be on her side and to hope that her schemes and plots come to fruition.

The novel is set in Regency England and when we first meet Becky she is preparing to leave Miss Pinkerton's Academy for Young Ladies, where she has been living and working as an unpaid French teacher for some years after the death of her father. Becky has no money or family connections and opportunities for a girl of her background and means are extremely limited.

She has secured a position as a governess but does not plan on making a career of this; in fact, her main aim is to find a rich husband which she sees as her surest means of escape from a life of drudgery and her first rung up the social ladder.

Answer: Amelia Sedley

Although Amelia is loving and kind-hearted, she is also extremely weak and foolish. She meekly accepts almost everything that happens to her in the novel, both the good and the bad, with resignation, and seems incapable of taking any action to improve her situation, relying on others to rescue her.

She is seemingly the polar opposite of Becky Sharp, and their differences are displayed to us from the opening chapter of the book when we first meet the two young ladies as they prepare to leave school. Nevertheless, Amelia and Becky are close friends, though the value of their friendship is questionable since Amelia is inclined to love everybody and since Becky is only really interested in what advantages she can gain from her association with Amelia; she is inclined to cool the friendship when Amelia's family lose their fortune and can be of no further use to her.

They reunite after their respective marriages but Amelia is so overshadowed by Becky's wit and charm that even she begins to distrust her former friend.

However, towards the end of the novel, Becky takes the one selfless action she has been seen to do during the entire novel by choosing to be honest with Amelia at a crucial moment and thus securing Amelia's eventual happy ending.

Answer: Napoleonic Wars

'Vanity Fair' is set during the Regency period of English history, and, while most of the novel takes place in England, there are a number of chapters which take place in Belgium as the British army prepares for the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Our two heroines have both ended up marrying army captains from the same division and so accompany their regiment to Belgium to await their husbands being called into battle.

Answer: George Osborne

George Osborne is a thoughtless young man who is the son of a wealthy merchant and former friend of Mr. Sedley, Amelia's father. After Mr. Sedley's bankruptcy is confirmed, Mr. Osborne disowns his old friend completely. In happier times George and Amelia's families had always planned for them to marry one day in order to unite the two firms.

However, Mr. Osborne senior forbids his son to see Amelia again now she is poor. Although Amelia is deeply in love with the dashing captain, he seems fairly uninterested in defying his father by marrying her until he is instructed to give up the engagement, at which point his independent and stubborn streak kicks in and he determines to marry Amelia against his father's wishes.

The news of the marriage is a great blow to old Mr. Osborne who immediately cuts his son off without a penny. Soon after their marriage the new Captain and Mrs. Osborne meet Becky Sharp and her new husband and George proceeds to become fascinated and charmed by his new acquaintance and to neglect his new wife while dancing attendance on her friend. For her part, Becky, as usual, seems most interested in what she can gain from Osborne and appears to encourage his attentions only to lure him into spending evenings at her house where he proceeds to lose large amounts of money to her husband at cards. On the eve of the battle of Waterloo George gives Becky a note asking her to elope with him but he is killed soon after on the battlefield leaving his young pregnant widow to return home to her parents and raise their child in very straitened circumstances.

Answer: William Dobbin

William Dobbin has been a friend of George Osborne since their school days when Dobbin protected Osborne from a bully. Dobbin's friendship for and admiration of his friend is seemingly boundless. Despite being a kinder and more honourable man than his friend, Dobbin seems to believe that it is a great privilege for him to be permitted to associate with Osborne. Dobbin's love for George Osborne is complicated when he meets and falls in love with Amelia Sedley. Knowing that she is in love with his friend, and concerned that Osborne is not showing enough eagerness to marry her, he encourages and arranges their marriage himself, even though he is in love with the bride, believing that the two people he loves best should be together and wanting to make the marriage happen as soon as possible in order to save his own feelings from further torment. Dobbin continues to love Amelia and proposes to her after George's death.

She refuses him but he continues to follow her around and to be her loyal servant until eventually, after an argument, he realises he has been wasting his affections on an unworthy subject for many years and leaves her. Becky steps in and scolds Amelia for clinging on to the memory of the selfish George and rejecting the noble Dobbin and tells Amelia to write to William, beg his forgiveness and implore him to return. Amelia does so and the two are quickly married and appear to live, mostly, happily ever after, even though Amelia is acutely aware that Dobbin does not have the same affection for her that he once did.

Answer: Rawdon

We first meet the ancient and noble, but somewhat disgraced Crawley family when Becky Sharp takes up a position as a governess with them shortly after leaving school. At this time Becky's primary objective is to secure a suitable husband. She settles on Rawdon, the younger of Sir Pitt's sons, because, although he will not inherit his father's title and estate, he is considered to be the heir apparent to his extremely wealthy aunt's magnificent fortune.

It is also possible that Becky is more sure that her powers of persuasion will meet with success with the fairly dim-witted and impetuous younger brother than with his pompous, circumspect and respectable older brother.

Her plan to snare Rawdon meets with great success as he is soon smitten and rushes into a clandestine marriage with her.

Unfortunately, shortly after they are married old Sir Pitt's second wife dies and he immediately proposes to the young governess with whom he too has become infatuated. Becky is distressed by this as she would not have been so quick to marry the son had she thought that the father, and his title, would be on offer too.

She is forced to turn this advantageous proposal down and subsequently to reveal her marriage, which causes Matilda Crawley to disinherit Rawdon.

Answer: Lord Steyne

Despite being badly off financially, Becky makes sure that she and Rawdon are still able to hold their own in society and the parties they hold at their little house become all the rage in fashionable London circles. The brilliant Mrs. Crawley attracts the attention of the fabulously wealthy and influential Lord Steyne with whom she begins an affair.

He gives her a great deal of money and many gifts of jewellery as well as arranging for her and Rawdon's son, little Rawdon, to attend a good school. Keen to have Becky to himself without her stolid husband hanging about, Lord Steyne and Becky arrange to have Rawdon arrested for debts he owes but his kind sister-in-law bails him out and he returns home to find his wife and the lord in a compromising situation. Rawdon is devastated by the breakdown of his marriage as he was very much in love with Becky, even though he had come to realise that she did not care for him or their son, little Rawdon, to whom he is devoted.

Answer: King George IV

The crowning moment in Becky's rise to social respectability comes when she is introduced at court by her eminently respectable brother-in-law Sir Pitt and his wife Jane. The King - who, before his coronation, had served as Prince Regent between 1811 and 1820 as his father, George III, was deemed unable to rule due to a mental infirmity - made a great impression on Becky who talked of nothing else to her fashionable acquaintances for weeks.

Answer: The Pilgrim's Progress

'The Pilgrim's Progress' is a celebrated Christian allegory first published in 1678. It is believed that its author, John Bunyan, began writing his magnum opus while in gaol. The 'Vanity Fair' in this book is a town where money and material goods have taken the place of god.